About the Artists:Epic Shadows is a special exhibit featuring a lavish selection of wildly colorful and dramatic shadow figures from the collection of the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. The shadow figures were part of the collection of the late anthropologist Walter Fairservis, and were donated to the Ballard Institute by his wife, Jano Fairservis. The puppets were used to perform tales from the Ramayana and other Hindu epics in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh by traveling puppet troupes in the early twentieth century.

Award winning artist Sharon Kocay of West Hartford has exhibited in a variety of galleries and shows, including the New Britain Museum of American Art Members Juried Show. Her works are also in a number of public and private collections. As a preschool teacher, she helped develop art programs in schools and summer camps and was the art director at Camp Renaissance at Kingswood Oxford School. She is an active member of the West Hartford and Wintonbury art leagues, the UConn Health Center Art Committee and the Connecticut Watercolor Society.

Kindergarten students at West Hartford’s Eric G. Norfeldt School created their own masterful versions of famous paintings by artists such as DaVinci, Michelangelo, Van Gogh, Warhol, O’Keeffe and various others. As part of a five-week course, the students study the artists’ lives and their works before painting their own masterpieces.

The University of Connecticut Health Center’s collection of fine arts serves to enhance the environment and promote the sense of a caring community for patients, visitors, staff and students. Art is selected, acquired and exhibited by the UCHC Art Advisory Committee. To view a selection of the Health Center’s permanent collection visit: http://auxiliary.uchc.edu/art.